Woman accelerated to heart of Moscow and St Petersburg car trade

WILD GEESE: Avril Conroy, Human resources and operational excellence director for Inchcape Russia

IN A city that can drain the batteries of the most energetic ex-pat, Avril Conroy has retained her spark through 17 years of dramatic change for Moscow and for her own life and career.

The Athlone native arrived there after working at Dunnes Stores, which she says was “the best experience of my life in terms of training me for multifunctional tasks”.

Urged by a colleague to apply for an exciting new job, she was sold on the idea by an interviewer who wooed her with promises of an apartment and personal driver. Only at the end of the meeting did he tell Conroy the job was in Russia which, by 1994, was fast earning a reputation as capitalism’s wild east.

“I was ready for a change, but when I arrived I didn’t know if I would have the endurance to stay,” Conroy (43) says now.

“Back then in Russia you were really a foreigner. No one spoke English and things were so different. Also, I went from having quite an independent lifestyle in Ireland to being part of a tight group of Irish people and other foreigners. I realised that I had to understand more about this country and to try and speak the language. And, as I did that, I really started to enjoy it.”

Conroy started out importing and selling footwear in Russia, and then plunged in to a fully “native” working environment by running a supermarket in a Moscow suburb. “The staff saw someone who got their hands dirty and worked with them, and that won their respect. I wanted the best from them and for the business and I was ready to give my best to achieve that,” she says.

“We had a great team, we had Irish music playing in the supermarket and the customers loved it. But we were working one day when the police arrived and closed us down because of a problem with the owners of the building. That’s what Russia could be like in those days.”

The incident opened Conroy’s eyes to the idiosyncrasies of Russian business, but did not stunt her ambition or growing fascination with the country.

When she subsequently went for an interview with BP, the woman she met told her she was too well-qualified for the position in question and recommended her for another post. Soon, she was working on developing BP’s growing network of shops at filling stations around Moscow, and would go on to become operations manager for 41 high-volume retail sites that employed some 1,600 people.

“I looked at the task as a customer, and began to imagine what this network of shops could be like. The potential was amazing,” Conroy recalls. “I was 27 years old and BP really polished me as a professional. It was great to have the backing of a big corporation and it helped me formulate my thoughts into a vision of how a business could be. I wasn’t used to using e-mail – never mind making PowerPoint presentations of strategy documents – but I soaked things up quickly and, in a couple of months, I had settled in.”

When BP linked up with Russian energy firm TNK to form the country’s third-biggest oil producer in 2003, Conroy felt that “Russia was changing very quickly and I wanted to be part of it”.

The relationship between the very different companies has been fraught, but Conroy quickly rose through the ranks to become TNK-BP’s retail performance unit leader for central Russia, a job which gave her plenty of experience of the country’s distinctive business culture.

“This is a very male-dominated country and the oil industry is especially so, but I am pragmatic and I have proved myself. I don’t get upset when a man doesn’t shake my hand at a meeting. It’s a culture thing and I am comfortable with that.”

A new challenge came last year, when Conroy joined Walmart with a view to becoming chief operating officer for operations in Russia. Ultimately, the firm decided not to set up in the country and offered her a job elsewhere but she declined.

Married to a Cypriot businessman with whom she has two young sons, Conroy is now at ease in a city and country that were once so strange. She is a mainstay of the Irish business community and does considerable charity work, including running marathons around the world.

She has just started in her new role as human resources and operational excellence director for Inchcape Russia, which runs a major network of high-end car dealerships in Moscow and St Petersburg.

“Russia is not the easiest of locations but it offers great excitement,” Conroy says with characteristic enthusiasm. “You can really make things happen and make a difference here – to be part of such huge change is remarkable.”